The Ramrodders Part 44

Under cover of the general buzz and bustle that accompanied the convening of the joint session of House and Senate for the purpose of the inauguration the girl rallied him a bit.

"The beginning of the righteous reign seems to be sane and sweet, after all," she said. "Even my father is complacent and purring this morning.

Which has he eaten, do you know--the raven of contention or the dove of peace?"

"I think every one understands that Governor Waymouth has straightened matters out for all of us," he replied.

"How? By simply talking about it? As one who should say, 'Let it be done,' and it was done, and just what was done n.o.body, n.o.body knew--but it was done--something was--and all the folks felt better and went on in the same old way! Is that it?"

He smiled at her while she teased him; the nature of the armistice that prevailed, according to outward appearances, was not understood by him.

For several weeks his intimacy with General Waymouth had not been as close as at the first. Not that there was distrust or even coolness between them. The veteran still depended on the young man for the services a trusted lieutenant could render. His plans, however, his future programme of reorganization--if he had any definite plans--the General kept to himself. It was not mere reticence. But there was an atmosphere about the old statesman as though he had withdrawn himself to a higher alt.i.tude to think his thoughts and formulate his plans alone.

If he had heard of the intimacy of Harlan Thornton with the family of Luke Presson he made no comment on that fact.

"Now what is he going to say in his address?" she asked. "Every one will know in a few moments. Tell me ahead--tell me the big utterance that will make the people sit up. I want to be ready to watch their faces!"

"Why, I haven't a single idea what he will say," he blurted.

"Oh, safe repository, I salute you!"

"But I haven't! The Governor hasn't opened his mouth to me!"

"Have a care! One very easily steps from polite diplomacy into very impolite falsehood. You must always be truthful with me, Harlan."

His eyes grew brighter and his tanned cheeks warm. It was the first time she had addressed him without hateful formality.

"I propose to tell you the truth, always," he a.s.sured her. "But I mean what I say--the Governor has kept his address to himself."

"I should resent that. It would have been a delicate compliment, and he owed that much to you. I'm afraid he has been a politician long enough to be like all the rest--to walk up to power on men as one uses a flight of stairs, and then to put the stairs behind his back; for one doesn't walk up-stairs backward."

He flushed more deeply.

"I'm not that kind of a fellow--jealous, or petty, or expecting a great deal for what little service I can render."

"Put a value on yourself, though," she advised him. "It really isn't human nature, you know, to pick up the things that are thrown away by the owners--to pick them up and keep them and value them, I mean. That applies to purses and all other possessions, including hearts and loyalty."

He started to say something to her--even though the throng pressed about them he would have said it; but the voice of the crier at the door announced what all were waiting for.

"His Excellency the Governor, the Honorable Council, and his Excellency the Governor-elect and party!"

They filed along in dignified procession down the centre aisle, the uniforms of the officers of the staff giving a touch of color and brightness to the formal frock-coats.

The Secretary of State announced the official figures of the vote electing Varden Waymouth as Governor, and after his sonorous final phrase, "G.o.d save the State of ------," Governor Waymouth repeated the oath of office administered by a gaunt, sallow lawyer who was the president of the Senate.

The clerk of the House set a reading-desk on the Speaker's table and arranged the Governor's ma.n.u.script. As the old man read he made a striking picture. He stood very erect. His snowy hair, the empty sleeve across his breast, the lines the years had etched on cheeks and brow gave those who looked on him a little thrill of sympathetic regret that one so old should be called from the repose of his later years to take up such public burdens as he had a.s.sumed. But his voice was resonant, his eye was clear. Nature seemed to have given him new strength to meet what he was now facing. And yet, thought some of those who listened, it might be that he did not propose to make a martyr of himself, after all.

His address did not threaten or complain. The radicals who sat there with set teeth and bent brows, hoping to hear denunciation after their own heart, were disappointed. The politicians who had feared now took new grip on their hope--it probably was not to be as bad as they had antic.i.p.ated.

Harlan Thornton listened to the calm, moderate statement of the State's general financial and political situation with growing sense of mingled disappointment and relief. His fighting spirit and his knowledge of conditions, as they had been revealed to him, made him hope that at last an honest man proposed to clean the temple--entering upon his task with bared arms and a clarion call. This mild old man, confining himself to the details of the State's progress and needs, was not exactly the leader he had expected him to be. And yet Harlan was relieved. He looked at the girl beside him, and that relief smoothed away his disappointment. As matters were shaping themselves he no longer antic.i.p.ated that he would be driven into pitched battle, forced to fight intrenched enemies of reform--Luke Presson's face most conspicuous of all those behind the party wall of privilege. As he listened to the address he comforted himself with the thought that probably political disagreements loomed more blackly as a cloud on the horizon than their real consistency warranted. He was not in retreat--he would not admit that to himself as he listened. But he felt that compromise and a better understanding were in the air. There would be no more occasion for troubled arguments between himself and the girl at his side. He did not understand exactly in what way it would be done, but he felt that Governor Waymouth knew how to win his reforms without such party slaughter as the first engagements hinted at. He put himself into a very comfortable frame of mind, and the girl at his side, by her mere presence, added to his belief that this was a pretty good old world, after all.

He had lost some of his respect for "reform." It had been exemplified for him mostly by such men as Prouty and his intolerant kind--by Spinney and his dupes. He felt that he might call decency by some other name, and arrive at results by the calm and dignified course which Governor Waymouth now seemed to be pointing out. He suddenly felt a warm appreciation of the wisdom of Madeleine Presson as she had made that good sense known to him in their talks.

"For it is by my works, not my words, that I would be judged," concluded the Governor, solemnly, and bowed to the applause which greeted the end.

Neither Harlan Thornton nor any other listener in the great a.s.sembly hall took those words as signifying anything more than the usual pledge of faithful performance.

After the dissolving of the joint caucus he escorted Madeleine to the council-chamber, where the new Governor was holding his impromptu reception. There were no shadows on the faces which pressed closely around him. All the politicians of the State were there, eager to be the first to congratulate him. Their fears had been somewhat allayed. In political circles it was well understood that Waymouth stood for a clean-up. It had been hinted that his programme would be drastic. The members of the machine, more intimately in the secrets of the convention, had expected that the old Roman would sound the first blast of the charge in his inaugural address. His moderateness cheered them.

Harlan found congratulation sweetening every comment.

The General received the young couple with marked graciousness.

"Governor Waymouth, you have convinced me to-day that you are the apostle of universal salvation for the wicked--in politics," said the girl. "I hope the doctrine will be accepted."

"In that belief you are safe companion for my first disciple," he returned, humoring her jest. The crowd carried them on.

"I believe that, too," Harlan murmured.

"Universal salvation according to the new political creed?"

"I'm not thinking about politics. I'm not thinking much about anything else just now except you. During the Governor's address it came over me suddenly what wise counsel you gave me. If I had you for an adviser all the rest of my life I could amount to more in the world than I ever can without you."

She glanced at him sharply.

"I mean that," he insisted. "Will you be my adviser for the rest of my life?"

It was crude, blunt, and sudden proposal. The throngs were eddying about them. They were jostled at the moment by the Toms, d.i.c.ks, and Harrys of the legislative concourse. Curious eyes surveyed them. Ears were near by.

"I can't help saying it here and now," he rushed on. "I--"

"My dear Harlan, you don't mean to say that you are proposing to me here in the face and eyes of this crowd?" She said it with sudden amazed mirth dancing in her eyes, but with a note of satire in her tone.

"I do mean it!" He cried it so loudly that men turned their heads to stare at this earnest young man who was protesting his faith to the handsome daughter of Luke Presson.

"Hus.h.!.+" she cried, sharply, and then pulled him along. She spoke low. "I don't think you have enough humor in you to realize just what you have done, Harlan. I have found humor lacking in you. You have picked out the lobby of the State House, in the middle of the biggest crowd of all the year, as the 'love's bower' for an offer of marriage. You say you mean it as an offer of marriage. But what you really did was to ask me to attach myself to you as general adviser. You can hire a clairvoyant who will do that much for you, and I doubt if you would engage the clairvoyant as publicly as you have just tried to engage me."

"I understand just what a fool I made of myself," he muttered, huskily.

"But I couldn't wait--and I mean it."

"No, you don't realize just how much of a fool you are where women are concerned," she returned, judicially. "A woman--a young woman--is generally interested in hearing first of all a little about love and devotion and loyalty, all unselfish and uncalculating. Now be patient!

Listen to me! A woman can detect real love. And real love seeks its opportunity sweetly and shyly. It doesn't preface itself with remarks about a woman's brain and advisory ability. I believe it has a lot to say about eyes and hair and lips and such things. However, since you admire me in my capacity as adviser, I'll advise you to be sure that you love a woman before you propose to her, and then when you propose pick out some place that's suitable for convincing her that you do love her.

I see mother yonder. Take me to her."

Turning away, flushed and angry, from her demure smile, he became bitterly conscious that even had they been alone, under most favorable circ.u.mstances, he would have lacked speech for real love-making. He felt that conviction inwardly. He wondered whether he had the capacity for loving as he had read of men loving. It made him a bit ashamed to think of himself as violently protesting, hungrily pleading. A moment before he had been angry because she doubted his love. He knew that he admired her, respected, desired her. Now he argued with himself, and convinced his soul that his emotions const.i.tuted love. And having convinced himself, he determined to seek further opportunity of convincing her. It was truly an academic way of settling matters so riotously impatient of calculation as affairs of the heart, and his determination would have appealed to Miss Presson's sense of the humorous more acutely still had he undertaken to explain his emotions of that moment.

Thelismer Thornton, strolling amiably through the lobby throng, came and put his hand on Harlan's shoulder.

"The best way to make good sugar is to simmer the sap slowly, my boy."

Harlan glanced sharply at him, but the Duke was not discussing love.

"Vard has got into the simmering stage at last. I reckoned he would.

He's too good a politician to boil the kettle over as he started in doing. What's the matter with you? You look as though you'd been listening to a funeral oration instead of an address that has put the party back on Easy Street."

His grandson was careful not to explain the cause of his gloom. He was willing to let politics be answerable.